1. Field of the Invention
This invention is directed to polymer devolatilization and, in certain aspects, to the use of a sparingly soluble stripping agent to significantly reduce the level of volatile contaminants in a flowing polymer.
2. Description of Related Art
Ideally solution polymerization would result in one hundred percent complete polymerization of monomer. In actual practice complete polymerization is never achieved and the resulting polymer has a variety of volatile contaminants, including unreacted monomer, solvent, and oligomers. Typically such contaminants are volatile relative to the polymer which is nonvolatile.
Residual monomer and other volatile contaminants in a product polymer may have an undesirable effect on polymer quality.
There has long been a need for improved methods for more efficient and effective polymer devolatilization. There has long been a need for such a method which avoids problems associated with the use of water as a stripping agent. There has long been a need for such a process which achieves very low volatile levels in a relatively short time, and with relatively small power requirements.